106 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 38 



[Translation] 

 Song 



Wai-aleale stands haughty and cold, 

 Her lehua bloom, fog-soaked, droops pensive; 

 The thorn-fringe set about swampy Ai-po is 

 A feather that flaunts in spite of the pinching frost. 

 5 Her herbage is pelted, stung by the rain ; 



Bruised all her petals, and moaning in cold 

 Mokihaua's sun, his wat'ry beams. 

 I have acted in good faith and honor, 

 My complaint is only to you — 

 10 A matter that touches my life. 



Best watch within and toward Ka-ula ; 

 Question each breeze, note every rumor. 

 Even the whisper of Malua-kele. 

 Search high and search low, unobservant. 



15 There is life in the breath from her body. 

 Fond caress by a hand not inconstant. 

 Like Assured groves of coral 

 Stand the ragged clumps of lehua. 

 Many the houses, easy the life. 



20 You have your portion — of love; 

 Humanity smells at the door. 

 Aye, indeed. 



The imagery of this poem is peculiarly obscure and the meaning 

 difficult of translation. The allusions are so local and special that 

 their meaning does not carry to a distance. 



Wai-aleale is the central mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000 

 feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp and 

 lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the symbol of a 

 woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate and disdainful. The 

 physical attributes of the mountain are ascribed to her, its spells of 

 frosty coldness, its gloom and distance, its fickleness of weather, the 

 repellant hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes the cen- 

 tral swamp — these things are described as symbols of her temper, 

 character, and plwsical make-up. The bloom and herbage of the 

 wilderness, much pelted by the storm, are figures to represent her 

 physical charms. But spite of all these faults and imperfections, a 

 jDerennial fragrance, as of mokihana, clings to her person, and she is 

 the object of devoted love, capable of weaving the spell of fascination 

 about her victims. 



This poem furnishes a good example of a peculiarity that often is 

 an obstacle to the understanding of Hawaiian poetry. It is the 

 breaking up of the composition into a number of parts that have but 

 a loose seeming connection the one with the other. 



